One of the best friends I ever made at the nursing home was Helen, a beautiful little lady from Missouri. In her mid-80s when we met, she’d been raised by a mother and later a grandmother who hadn’t had much use for religion. But Helen was curious, and in her teens started taking herself to church to learn about this Jesus that people were talking about. And along the way she became, forevermore, a Christian.

Helen’s children loved her a lot, and they were always bringing her not only beautiful clothes but also reading material of all kinds, including books and magazines about her faith. We talked endlessly about these things, she in her quiet drawl, and I with unfettered enthusiasm that she, at least, seemed to appreciate.

One day Helen said excitedly that she’d read a wonderful little story about a silversmith, and that she wanted me to read it aloud so we could both enjoy it. But then she couldn’t find the publication it was in, so she told me about it instead, even though she sometimes had a hard time finding even everyday words.

“It was like this,” she said, smiling shyly. “There were these lady friends who were reading the Bible together and came across a verse they didn’t understand. I think it was in Malachi – can you look it up?”

I reached for my New American Standard Bible, my translation of choice at the time, and began searching for the Old Testament book of Malachi.

“I think it was chapter three,” she added.

Finding it at last, I started reading in verse one. She sat in her wheelchair, pressing her lips together and looking at the ceiling or the heavens, listening intently. It didn’t take long: When I started verse three, she cried, “That’s it! Start over again.”

“’He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver,’” I read, “’and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness.’”

“Yes, that’s the one,” she said. “So these ladies didn’t understand that verse, because they didn’t understand how silver was made. So one of them decided to find out. She went to a silversmith and asked him to show her exactly what he did. And so he did!” Helen reached for her water cup and took a good long drink. She certainly wasn’t having much trouble with her words today.

“This lady’s idea was that this verse, the one you just read, had to do with the –“ And she was stumped. She looked at me and shook her head. “You know what it is. When He changes us.”

“Sanctifying?” “Yes, that’s it,” she said, smiling at me gratefully. “Sanctifying. This lady thought this verse was intended to get that idea across, that God will purify us the way a silversmith purifies silver. And then two things.”

She paused to make sure she had it right.

“Yes. First, he told her that he just sits and watches the furnace every minute that the silver is in there, because it mustn’t go a moment longer than is needed or the silver will be hurt.”

We grinned at each other.

“He does that with us, you know,” she said. “He lets us go through trials but not more than –“ She stopped again and looked at me sadly.

“More than we can bear,” I said, nodding at her encouragingly. I looked at the verse again. “He will sit as a smelter and purifier…”

We grinned some more.

“You said there were two things, didn’t you, Helen?”

We both laughed; it was a rare visit when one of us didn’t forget something important we’d wanted to share.

“And it’s the best part,” Helen said. “You will love this. The lady asked the silversmith how he knew that his silver was ready. And he said—“ She looked at me with the giddiest expression on her face, as if she was about to deliver the greatest punchline of all time. “Do you know what he said, Kitty?”

I shook my head.

“He said, ‘It’s done when I can see my image reflected in the silver.’”

I am so weary of professing-Christian PhDs who side with atheists like Richard Dawkins in the battle against Genesis – especially when they preach their heresies from the pulpit, using their educational credentials to lead other professing Christians down the wide path to destruction. Here’s an adaptation of a letter I just sent off to one such scientist; I share it because you might find the resources I mention personally interesting or possibly useful for your own correspondence.

Dear Dr. _______, I’m writing to call your attention to a grave error you made in your September 22, 2013, message on the subject of science and faith. Since I am sure you do not want to bear false witness against the fundamentalists whom you call your friends, I do hope you will take a closer look at the issues you have raised and refrain from disseminating false information about us.

You said, “… our fundamentalist friends who insist that so-called intelligent design be taught in the classrooms ... insist that science and faith cannot co-exist.” This is simply not true. On the contrary, fundamentalists say, quite correctly, that science supports the Bible rather than godless evolutionary theory.

Creation scientists have written hundreds of outstanding books on every imaginable aspect of this subject, and there are scores of web sites addressing these issues. If you don’t care to take the time to investigate this critical issue yourself – which of course speaks to the very authority of scripture –then I would ask you to simply stop making such false statements.

You might want to spend some time on the web sites of Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society. All three of these organizations (as well as many others) count among their ranks highly credentialed Ph.D. scientists.

In your message, you also apparently claim to know the hearts of “the writers” of Genesis (please note that there was only one -- Moses). You said, “The writers of Genesis did not view science and religion as being in conflict. They wrote their poems of creation as works of art and theological reflection without concern for their scientific accuracy.”

But Genesis is not a poetic work or a theological reflection; compare it to the Psalms, and you will see the difference. Instead, Moses was faithfully recording history in a book inspired by the only One who was actually on the spot “in the beginning.”

You may not believe any of this; that is your privilege. However, you should know that, in standing with Richard Dawkins and his ilk against your fundamentalist “friends,” you are in essence advising listeners to reject the authority of scripture, which is in turn an invitation to pick and choose whatever they want to believe and obey. This is bad enough when you are speaking to adults; consider what Jesus Himself said about those who lead children into sin (Matthew 18:6).

Finally, I would like to remind you that it is spiritually and perhaps eternally dangerous to shrug off Jesus’ own endorsement of the Pentateuch. As He said, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.” (John 5:46)

It is my prayer that you will apply that fine mind of yours to seeking out the truth of scripture and of science, and to sharing that truth with others. But if that’s too much to ask, please at least refrain from misrepresenting what fundamentalists and creation scientists teach. Sincerely,

Here's an item from an interesting photo essay on mysteries that scientists have yet to solve: Why Do Cats Purr?by Thor Jensen"Unsolved scientific mysteries don’t have to be large-scale questions about the nature of the universe. They can be closer to home – such as the centuries-long investigation into why cats purr. The soft rumbling noise is typically made as an expression of happiness and contentment, but cats also emit the sound when they’re upset or recovering from injury. There’s even a special purr that they make when they’re wanting to be fed. Even more puzzling is how they purr – there’s no specific organ that makes the sound, and the best theory we have is that it’s a result of contractions of the larynx around the vocal [chords]."And there are naturally many more unsolved mysteries in this world, starting with the origins of all that compressed matter that supposedly erupted, via a mysteriously caused Big Bang, into everything in the universe. (No word on where space came from.) This photo essay takes an intriguing look at just a few of those mysteries, from human fingerprints and the distribution of prime numbers to to the existence of gravity and (apparently) free will.So here's my question: How is it that so many people -- a growing minority, if surveys are to be believed, including a grand proportion of the intelligentsia -- are trusting their eternities to the word of scientists who don't even have a clue how cats purr? We're talking about the most critical whodunit of our lives -- and the atheists' bumbling Hercules Poirots are turning a blind eye to the obvious Suspect. If you're looking for the solution, don't go to the end of the book; you'll find it thoroughly explained in the very first sentence, AKA Genesis 1:1.

Five-star evangelist Mark Cahill posted this Grand Canyon picture on Facebook this morning. It's a view I've been looking for, off and on, for quite some time. That must be the mighty Colorado River snaking its way through the canyon -- the river that evolutionists credit for carving out this geological wonder, 277 miles long, 18 miles wide, 5,000 feet deep, over millions and millions of years. Given enough time, anything can happen, right?Wish I'd seen this photo 50 years ago -- because it exposes this idea of vast ages as absurd. Thanks to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state, we have been given the privilege of seeing, first-hand, how such geological formations come about. Hint: It happens suddenly, with incredible speed, and in the wake of catastrophe. So what? So this evidence -- scientific evidence, folks! Eyewitness evidence! -- makes mincemeat of a primary evolutionary proof for the earth being millions and millions of years old. Because evolution theory depends on two mechanisms: time plus chance. And Mount St. Helens destroys the Grand Canyon's utility as Exhibit A on the time side of this evolutionary equation. In point of fact, the Grand Canyon is a majestic testimony to the Genesis Flood. It is proof that the world we know today was shaped just as the Bible says it was -- suddenly, quickly, and in the wake of catastrophe. There's much more to this argument, of course. But this morning I'm simply reflecting on how perhaps a careful look at a photographic like this one, accompanied by a little enlightened commentary, might have persuaded me to begin my investigation into absolute truth a lifetime ago. What a difference that would have made. Perhaps it's not too late for someone you love.

In Sunday school this week, our amazing teacher and pastor taught us from scripture what it means to consecrate our lives to the Lord – to set ourselves apart in service to Him, because we belong to Him.

This study has made me reflect on the people I’ve known who have led consecrated lives – a line of thinking that led me straight to a wonderful woman named Lil.Lil was 98 when I met her at the nursing home, and was just three months short of 100 when she died, eagerly and peacefully, in a local hospital, a few months after being baptized at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin. (Alas, she was not immersed in the enormous pond as a dozen others were. Getting her down to the site was challenge enough; immersing her would have been almost impossible. But there’s no doubt that the Lord saw her submission to a good dousing, following her heartfelt testimony to a huge crowd of witnesses, as “an appeal to [Him] for a good conscience,” as the apostle Peter put it in 1 Peter 3.)

Having been saved at age 17, when she responded to an altar call in her family’s church, Lil had never gotten around to believer’s baptism over the decades. In fact, she had not quite put the Lord on the throne of her heart for many years.

But when she did, look out! I doubt that the Lord has had many bolder, or more courageous, evangelists in His army.

By the time I met her, Lil was confined to her wheelchair. And the blindness that had begun at least a decade earlier had by then closed her eyes completely to the things of this world. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she was so on fire for the Lord – she was no longer distracted by the material world.

It didn’t matter who you were – friend or stranger, nurse or aide, purveyor of orthopedic shoes or relative of her latest roommate. You couldn’t walk into her room without eventually being quizzed about your relationship with Jesus, and being prayed for, and receiving one of the tracts that her many friends kept her supplied with. But she did it all with such joy and love and giggle-filled humor that I don’t imagine she offended anyone but the most dour atheist.

And once she knew you, she made you feel like you were her best friend in the world. How I miss hearing her cry “Kitty! I’ve been waiting for you!” when I hurried to her room each week, my heart leaping with happiness at the sight of her.

Lil’s enthusiasm for my visits was genuine; there was not an untruthful bone in that old body of hers. But it was fascinating to find out how many others felt exactly the same way about their relationships with her. There must have been 200-300 people at her funeral – exponentially more than I’ve seen at any of the other funerals I’ve attended over the last decade. Not that this made her a better person than any of the others, or more loved by those closest to her. But it was certainly a good indicator of how important she made us feel, how essential we each knew we had been to her happiness.

Lil’s funeral opened with a video of her giving her Christian testimony, taped a decade earlier. In fact, the entire event was as Christ-centered as she had been personally in the last years of her life. If there was any weeping, I didn’t hear it; it’s impossible to be overwhelmed by sorrow when you know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that your dear friend has simply gone on ahead, to meet her Lord and Savior face to face.

I for one am looking forward to joining her one happy day, to seeing this consecrated life of hers translated into its heavenly presence. I like to think that when I see my dear Lil, I will once again hear her happy cry: “Kitty! I’ve been waiting for you!”

Here's another five-star book recommendation, along with my review of it, just published in The Investigator (P.O. Box 3243, Port Adelaide Australia 5015).Documenting Darwin’s influence on the Third Reich:Everyone who was anyone embraced his doctrine

When I was a journalism student back in the 1970s, I spent every precious elective on history classes, with an emphasis on modern German history.

This coursework did some damage to my near-perfect grade-point average, because it meant studying under a professor who considered “C” an adequate reward for mastering the material. Still, I persisted. I studied obsessively and read all the best books about that era, from Allan Bullock’s acclaimed Hitler: A Study in Tyranny to Albert Speer’s Inside the Third Reich.

Yet somehow, I don’t remember hearing much about the philosophy underlying Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jews. Maybe if I’d ever read Mein Kampf, I would have had a clue, but not one professor ever recommended it. Maybe they believed, with George Eliot, that cruelty requires no motive.

But Eliot was wrong, and I’m afraid my beloved professors were, too. The “why” of the Holocaust is critically important, both for evaluating our past errors and for doing everything possible to prevent another, perhaps even deadlier, catastrophe.

Enter Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview: How the Nazi Eugenic Crusade for a Superior Race Caused the Greatest Holocaust in World History. The latest work of Dr. Jerry Bergman, it is one of those books that explores what should be obvious – but, like the proverbial elephant in the room, is for some reason never discussed in polite company.

What a shame. Dr. Bergman’s book explains the inexplicable, makes sense out of the nonsensical, and reveals the thought that allowed the unthinkable to come to pass. It should be mandatory reading in college history classes. And it should top the reading list of anyone who understands that what we believe really does matter.

Here’s Dr. Bergman’s premise about “doctrinaire Darwinist” Adolf Hitler – a premise that he documents exhaustively: A central goal of Hitler and his government was the development and implementation of eugenics to produce a “superior race,” often called the Aryan, Teutonic or Nordic race. At the very least, this goal required preventing the “inferior races” from mixing with those judged superior in order to reduce contamination of the gene pool. Hitler believed that what we today recognize as he human gene pool could be improved by using selective breeding, similar to how farmers breed superior cattle.[1]

Dr. Bergman makes an airtight case that this was indeed the philosophy driving Hitler’s murderous machine – the philosophy that unfortunately “culminated in the Final Solution, the extermination of 6 million Jews and over 5 million Poles and others who belonged to what German scientists judged were ‘inferior races.’”[2]

Acknowledging that there were many factors leading up to the Holocaust, Dr. Bergman points out that “Of the many factors that produced Hitler’s eugenic and genocidal [programs], according to his own writings, one of the more important was Darwin’s notion that evolutionary progress occurs primarily as a result of the elimination of the weak in the struggle for survival and allowing the strong to flourish ... Darwin-inspired eugenics clearly played a critical role.”[3]

The author then goes on to prove it, point by terrifying point, in a frighteningly compelling read. He uses excellent techniques to pull the reader through, for instance by foreshadowing what we’ll learn in subsequent chapters to give context to the subject at hand. And in addition to setting the stage generally, he provides up-close-and-personal analyses of Hitler’s most important and influential henchmen – Mengele, Bormann, Himmler, Goebbels, Göring, Heydrich, Rosenberg and Streicher.

Dr. Bergman closes his book with a weighty chapter entitled “What can be learned from attempts to apply Darwinism to society.” This chapter alone is worth the price of admission.

***Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldviewis full of surprises. The margins of my copy are filled with exclamation points to highlight facts about, for instance, the German government subsidizing reproduction among “racially and biologically desirable” couples,[4] perfecting its Lebensborn program to advance the breeding of the Nordic super-race,[5] and sponsoring mass kidnapping of “racially valuable” children.[6]

Another recurring (and unfortunately less surprising) theme was the enthusiastic support lent to Hitler by members of the scientific establishment. Germany was known in the first part of the 20thcentury as the home of the most accomplished scientists in the world, including the majority of Nobel Laureates. These were the experts who gave Hitler the scientific justification he needed to advance his horrific programs.

Noting that some Nazi scientists received accolades and awards long after the fall of the Third Reich, Dr. Bergman provides this chilling insight from Dr. Susanne Heim: "Scientists are highly vulnerable to intellectual and moral corruption – opportunities will be used if they promise more influence and success.”[7]

Apparently not even medical doctors could resist. Forget the Hippocratic oath; “the psychiatric and medical professions were among the most enthusiastic supporters of Nazi race programs.”[8]

Dr. Bergman is not alone in believing that Darwinism impacted Hitler and his supporters. He quotes other authorities extensively throughout his book, and notes that scholars such as Professor Richard Weikart have also documented its role in Nazism.[9] And as outspoken Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould wrote in his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny, “’Biological arguments for racism …increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory’ by scientists in most nations.”[10]

But this book may be the first to gather all this evidence under one convenient cover and to make such a persuasive case for what happens when Darwinism is taken to its logical conclusion. It’s not a book I’d recommend for bedtime reading.

*** In the midst of reading Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview, I had the chance to watch Ray Comfort’s powerful pro-life documentary 180, in which he uses the Holocaust as an analogy for abortion (watch it at www.180movie.com/). Ray opens with clips of interviews with young people. Astoundingly, almost none knew who Hitler was.

And there you have it. We are raising a nation of people who don’t know who Adolf Hitler was, or what he did; yet they have been raised on the same existential philosophy that drove his killing machine.

Is this really such a problem?

It is if Dr. Bergman is correct about the parallels that he and others are drawing to events in our world today.

Consider, for example, the alarming increase in reports of Antisemitism in many parts of the world.

Or consider the “weaning of Americans from Christianity by banning public display of Christian symbols and ritual. This is, he points out, “remarkably reminiscent of what Nazi Germany did.”[11]

Or consider any of the other steps that the western world is taking, from gun control legislation to interfering with (and in some cases persecuting) home-schooling parents – all echoes of Hitler’s own policies.

Then read Dr. Bergman’s latest book, and consider the similarities between the philosophies underlying the Third Reich, and those prevailing in our culture today.

What do you think? Is there cause for concern?

Many in Germany, early on, recognized the harm of Darwinism, and the Prussian Minister of Education for a time in 1875 forbade the “schoolmasters in the country to have anything to do with Darwinism … with a view of protecting schoolchildren from the dangers of the new doctrines.” A significant question is this: Would the Nazi Holocaust have occurred if this ban had remained in effect?[12]

Great question – one that I believe Dr. Bergman answers affirmatively and persuasively in this very important book.

Don’t know how I came across this article, but I’m sure the prince of the power of the air is dancing a jig over it.

It’s about a new e-book written and published by a man named Michael Ellenbogen – a man who is, sadly, suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. It describes, in concise and frightening detail, how the disease has ransacked his mind. How awful to suffer in this manner at any time of life, but especially when you are still working, trying to keep up appearances when you know you are losing your mind. I can’t imagine such a trial. But what’s really horrifying is his closing plea:

“Any chance I had at a good life and a happy retirement has gone; my life is pretty much over. If you were in my shoes would you want to carry on, knowing what is in store for you?

“I want to die on my own terms, I want to die with dignity, I want to die while I can still make the decision to die, and that is a very small window because I know in the not too distant future even that choice is going to be taken from me.

“The laws we have in place today do not take into account the needs of people suffering from dementia; we need to rethink not only how we regard people with this disease, but also how we look after them. We need to have things in place not only to help those suffering live vital and productive lives, but also provide the means necessary for them to die with dignity and at a time of their choosing.”Wow. So dying “with dignity,” pride intact, is better than living with courage? The desire to die “with dignity” means it’s okay to play God?

Unless we’re among those who drop dead of a heart attack or stroke or get hit by a bus, most of us are going to lose plenty of dignity on our way to eternity. Before we’re through, at least some of us will have to learn to wear diapers again, and put up with being spoon-fed by paid workers. Is dying “with dignity” so important that we should all blow our brains out before that happens?

What really bugs me about this is that he can’t just go ahead and do what he feels he must do. No, he wants us to change our laws to make offing yourself respectable, too. Safety in numbers and so forth.

I’m very sorry for you, Mr. Ellenbogen. I will be praying for you and your wife, hoping that you will come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. It would transform your thinking on this subject and pave the way for a joy-filled eternity for you. But our culture is already paying the price for murdering millions of young lives in the womb; your fear does not give you the right to demand that we also condone murder at the end of life. The real tragedy is that this man will no doubt get his way, eventually. After all, assisted suicide has become all the rage in Europe, and our national goal seems to be becoming just like Europe.